Emily Jamea, Ph.D., is a sex therapist, author and podcast host. You can find them here every month to share their latest thoughts on sex.
“Would you like to put on a drink?”
We all know what that means, right?
Alcohol and sex have long been connected in our culture, from romantized representations in the media to informal references in social environments. But when it comes to the sexual health of women, the role of alcohol is more complicated than the attraction suggests. While a glass of wine improves intimacy or facilitate inhibitions, the effects of alcohol on sex, especially for women, earn more precisely.
The US general surgeon has just published an advisor in which the connection between alcohol and cancer was emphasized, which brought the conversation about alcohol to the mind of everyone. It also made me think about the dialogue that I think about the role that alcohol plays in their relationships and their sex life.
Take Sarah and Bill, a couple who visited me for help with the management of problems with sexual desire. They had found a gradual decline in the way they have had sex over the years, especially after children. They did their best to keep the fire on life. Once a month, they had a day a month at their favorite Italian place, where the sommelier quickly recommended the best bottle of wine to accompany the nightly special.
Bill was looking forward to these nights because it was more or less the only night every month in which he and Sarah had “good” sex, as he described it. The rest of the times when they had sex was clear that it felt like a task for them. Bill was annoyed that Sarah seemed to be a real interest in combining a feeling of obligation to combine. Sarah didn’t understand why Bill was dissatisfied. She had the feeling that her monthly gender of the appointment night was fantastic when she turned out a night a month when her “inner Vixen” came out. She had the feeling that Bill should be grateful because she knew that she became nasty on these nights than many of her friends.
It would have been easy to work with what Bill and Sarah said about the nominal value. I could have emphasized that Date Night gave them the opportunity to be away from the children and connect emotionally, which is why Sarah felt more sexual. I could have quoted the “good enough sex model”, which essentially reminds couples to put realistic expectations of the quality of their sexual life in long -term relationships. After further explorations, I also learned that Sarah, who often felt stressed after a long working day, helped a glass of wine at the end of the day and relaxed at the end of the day and took the advantage when the children wineered. She and the other mothers of the softball teams thought it was great what it felt like to fill their Stanleys with mimosa at the games on Saturday morning. I was worried that she had built up an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and that she might use as an instrument to release her sexual inhibitions with Bill once a month. I was curious who would be in bed as a crutch without alcohol and how her relationship could shift with Bill.
The more you drink, the more you rely on drinking
When I explained Sarah to take alcohol to take a long day with alcohol, which she takes off for a long day, may be more irritable. Alcohol has a complicated relationship to fear.
Drinking can initially cause a feeling of relaxation and lightness by depressing the central nervous system and increasing the effects of Gaba, a neurotransmitter that promotes calm. In the long term, however, alcohol can make fear worse in different ways. After drinking, the brain tries to restore balance by reducing GABA and increasing other important neurotransmitter. The next day, this can lead to increased fear and irritability. Second, alcohol affects the REM sleep and the entire sleep quality, which leads to tiredness and greater emotional instability, which can make fear worse. After all, the use of alcohol to deal with fear can lead to dependency, which makes it more difficult for the brain to manage stress in a natural way. This can create a vicious circle in which more alcohol is needed to achieve the same calming effect.
The initial feelings of the calm that a bottle of wine Sarah has probably contributed to the fact that she felt sexually freer in appointments, but I was not surprised to find out that Sarah was more willing to explore new things in bed in these Saturday evening. Alcohol is a depression, which means that it slows down the central nervous system. This can have a significant impact on the sexual reaction. For women, drinking alcohol can reduce excitement and sensitivity, as this reduces the blood circulation to erogenous zones. This can lead to difficulties, reach orgasm or experience less pleasant sensations.
Read: Science behind orgasms: What’s going on when you get it on >>
Normalization of drinking culture
In view of what I knew about her relationship dynamics, I was less concerned about the approval as a problem between Sarah and Bill, but it is important that all women remember that alcohol affects decision making, which can lead to risky sexual behavior or situations in which consent becomes ambiguous or impossible. My greater concern was that Sarah’s confidence in alcohol had led to an emotional replacement of Bill and a reduced ability to authentic to reduce her sexual inhibitions. This separation most likely contributed to the fact that sex outside of her monthly rendezvous fell flat.
I thought it was important to remind Sarah that the gradual way she let alcohol slipped into her life was probably (at least partially) due to alcohol companies that can be deliberately aligned with women like them. Alcohol marketing has developed to address women directly and to open up issues of authorization, relaxation and self -care. Campaigns often use slogans such as “Mama juice” or “Rosé All Day”, which glamorizes alcohol as a coping mechanism for the stress of life. This targeted marketing increases the risk of dependency because it creates a normalized culture of routine drinking.
I challenged Sarah to a 60-day sobriety of challenges to investigate how her life could change without alcohol. She did not meet the diagnostic criteria for alcoholism, but I believed that her first month would reveal problems that were lurking under the surface and would give the next month to implement changes. She could then decide whether and how much alcohol she wanted to introduce back into her life.
Retreat
Sarah found that sitting in her car took a few minutes in her car and several deep breaths before picking up the children, helping her to calm her nervous system before moving to mommy mode. She was pleasantly surprised to find that the softball mothers had no difficult her to let the Mimosa lesson, and she even inspired a few of them to switch to morning coffee instead. She and Bill had a nice dinner without a visit to the sommelier, but she was shocked to discover how sexually she felt when she tried to make love later in the evening. We spent several sessions in therapy to examine the root of their sexual slopes, and I gave her strategies to overcome them. It took a few months, but finally she knocked into her inner sober fox. It was overwhelmed by joy to discover that uninvited sober sex was infinitely more pleasant than sex with the anesthetic effect of alcohol. And beyond that she found that she really wished her husband between the appointments more often.
Sarah occasionally enjoys wine or cocktail, but she has completely changed her relationship with alcohol and drastically improved the quality of her sex life.
The relationship between alcohol and sexual health of women is a complex topic that goes beyond occasional cocktail. The moderate drink may feel harmless, but the physical, psychological and relational effects can be profound. Since alcoholism continues to rise in women and is heated by targeted marketing and cultural normalization, it is more important than ever to promote conversations about empowerment, consciousness and authentic connection – without alcohol as a heart.
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